art and artists at lathrop - lathropres.org
TRANSCRIPT
Series II: Vol. 5—4
Autumn 2020 A Community Converses
ART AND ARTISTS AT LATHROP
“Morning Shadows” by Anne Yarnall
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 2 Autumn 2020
Yes, It Really Is About You
Contributing to The Nor’Easter
It’s about the poems you write, about the vignettes you’ve related for years but
have never recorded, about the foul ball you caught with your other hand (or may-
be dropped with the favored one), about a chance elevator ride with a celebrity du
jour, about that epiphanic moment when it all became clear, about the first sight of
the phantom of delight who changed your life, about that time in the Great Depres-
sion or in the War of Your Choice, about your genealogy searches, about your
travels, about your work or profession — in short, about what interests you to
write, and you know better than we do what that is.
Send your contributions and questions to:
We prefer contributions written in Word, PDF, or RTF format, but if you have
sagely avoided computers and email, get in touch with the Editorial Committee. As
a Lathrop resident, you will know how.
About the Artist:
Anne Yarnall
“For me, abstraction seems to
generate greater mood and in-
tensity in my work. There is a
place somewhere between real-
ism and abstraction where the
magic is. By creating tensions
between flatness and depth,
between narrative and idea, I
can get closer to the energy
and emotional weight I’m look-
ing for in my quest to demon-
strate and share my deep love
of and faith in nature.”
The Lathrop Nor’Easter Editorial Committee:
Joan Cenedella
Sarah Gauger
Lyn Howe
Sharon Kletzien
Barbara Reitt
Irving Rothberg
Stephanie Schamess
“Bazaar”
by Anne Yarnall
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 3 Autumn 2020
Brayton F. (Bill) Wilson,
Northampton
I grew up in Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts, spending summers in Graf-
ton, Vermont, where from high school
through college I worked, mostly for a
cousin building tennis courts. After
college I drove a bulldozer for six
months. Armed with an MF degree, I
spent a year in Australia studying
growth stresses in trees. In 1959 I
headed to Berkeley, California, for a
PhD in botany, met Mary Alice, and
we married in 1960. I finished my PhD,
and we spent 1961 to 1967 at the Har-
vard Forest in Petersham, Massachu-
setts, where I did research on tree
growth and physiology that I continued
as a professor at UMass, Amherst,
from 1967 to 1999.
We spent a sabbatical year in Aus-
tralia with our two young daughters
(born 1962, 1965). On other sabbati-
cals I went to Oregon State University
in Corvallis, and one year I helped run
a group doing research in Alaska. Start-
ing in 1983 and 1984 I helped a grad
student measuring vegetation on plots
on university forests. I have continued
decennial measurements on these plots
and made separate vegetation studies
on the Holyoke range with Mary Alice.
In the 1970s I worked with two others
on the growth and distribution of
striped maple (which I was pleased to
find in the Lathrop forest). We re-
mained friends and formed the Striped
Maple Society, which now meets every
year, this year by Zoom.
After retiring, I took a course in
the UMass history department,
“Landscape and Memory,” and got
interested in small-town histories in
Massachusetts, and towns in the Mid-
west along the shunpike route we took
to visit our daughter and grandchildren
in Iowa. Back in our younger days, we
took annual backpacking trips in
Montana. I skied cross country, ran in
road races, rode my bike. I did the
best in races when racers in my age
class (who were mostly better than
me) did not show up.
Mary Alice Bauer Wilson,
Northampton
My major claim to fame: I was
born in Omaha, Nebraska—
something I used occasionally to try
to impress my suburban-Boston
friends as I was growing up. When
that failed, I would add that I spent
every summer in Lamont, Idaho, on
my maternal grandparents' homestead
with visits to my paternal grandpar-
ents on their farm nearby. I didn't
bother to explain that the maternal
grandparents homesteaded by train in
1911, or that their place never got
rural electrification, so that my cous-
ins and I (and wandering grown-ups)
used the hand pump to draw water
from the hand-dug well, drank milk
cooled in the root cellar, etc. As an
adult, I realized that all those car trips
across the country and the evenings
lying in bed watching the lightning in
the Tetons accomplished my parents'
goal—to instill in me a love for the
vast, wild beauty of that Idaho world.
I wandered into teaching by getting
graduate student support as a teaching
assistant in political science at Berkeley,
where I met Bill. I loved teaching. I
taught high school in Oakland, Cali-
foria, in Athol, Massachusetts, and later
in Amherst. When our daughters,
Catherine and Beth, were young, I took
a series of soft-
money, flexible
positions that pro-
vided me with
amazing opportuni-
ties to learn com-
munity/school cul-
tures and how to
help teachers ac-
cess the resources
they needed. As
they grew older, I
found full-time
positions that al-
lowed me to con-
tinue my work with teachers. As I re-
flect on those busy years and the chal-
lenges schools faced, nothing, no mat-
ter how difficult it was, matches the
COVID-19 world.
In my retirement (1997), I decided
to learn to be a birder—I worked so
hard and learned so much— that I fi-
nally was able to say to my teachers,
"Thank you. Now how can I help
you?" Well, it turned out that what they
valued was my ability to not lose com-
puter files. Sigh. So, I became clerk
(some would say sheepdog) for various
non-profit birding and land trust pro-
jects. What a gift.
August 2020. As our daughters
were preparing a book of photographs
for our (Zoomed) 60th wedding anni-
versary party, they asked for an updat-
ed photo. We have included that selfie.
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 4 Autumn 2020
In the Smith family, the passage of time is thought to be
shaped by turning points. They remember to honor the
special people who change the course of their lives in unpre-
dictable ways. Such was the case with a high school teacher
who recognized a potential star athlete in a tall, long-legged
student with an excess of energy.
The high school was in Metuchen, New Jersey, a town
too poor to provide the school with athletic facilities such as
a track for runners and jumpers like fidgety Fred Smith. One
teacher decided to confront the problem. He set up hurdles
at intervals in a hallway and taught Fred the fine points of
running the high hurdles on the hall’s hardwood floors.
Fred dedicated each afternoon to practicing hurdling tech-
niques.
Two years later Fred’s family moved to Cincinnati,
Ohio, where the high school was endowed with a fine run-
ning track. Fred excelled there at the 120-yard high hurdles
race. His father never missed watching him race, and even
A Turning Point
by Marny Smith
track and field coach Larry Snyder of Ohio State University
in nearby Columbus was a frequent spectator. He had
coached the Olympic star Jesse Owens and told Fred one
day after a race, “Son, if you ever want to come to Ohio
State just call me!”
However, not long after graduating from high school in
1943, Fred was drafted into the Army. He spent the next
four years in the military, starting briefly with the Combat
Engineers and moving on to the Army Air Corps. After
transfer to the air base in Amarillo, Texas, Fred was spotted
running hurdles in a meet by the commanding general, who
told him, “Smith, you are not flying anymore—you’re going
to play football for me.”
After almost four years of this quite unorthodox mili-
tary service, Fred was discharged. Like thousands of others
heading back to civilian life, he was eager to take advantage
of the free college tuition offered through the GI bill to
continue his interrupted education. His parents had relocat-
ed again, this time to Connecticut, which is where Fred be-
gan his search for a college that had room for him. Howev-
er, he found little resemblance between the Quonset hut
lodgings being offered by many colleges under the GI bill
and the fraternity houses he had been looking forward to.
Because he still loved to run, Fred thought of Coach
Snyder’s words, "If you ever want to come to Ohio State,
call me." It seemed like a long shot but worth a try. “Coach,
this is Fred Smith. I’m home from the war, and you proba-
bly won't remember me, but four years ago this is what you
said.” The coach listened to his every word. “Give me your
phone number, Smith, and I will call you back.” Fred was
sure that it was a long shot, a pipe dream, but the coach
called back in a half-hour with the news: “Son, you’re in
Ohio State!”
The invitation included living at the coach’s home until
Fred found a fraternity to join. He ran both the high hur-
dles and did the high jump up to 6’ 2” for Ohio State at big
meets all over the country. Fred’s father watched those rac-
es on Pathé News in the little theater in Grand Central Sta-
tion on his daily commute, and he wore Fred’s gold track-
shoe tie clip with a little “O” on it until the day he died.
The hero responsible for this most important turning
point in the life of Fred Smith was the resourceful teacher at
Metuchen High, to whom Fred is ever grateful. Sadly, he
just doesn’t remember the teacher’s name!
“Fred Overcoming the Hurdles” 1943
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 5 Autumn 2020
Wind Jazz 2
The breath of the earth is moody tonight,
a free-jazz solo with all the world its instrument.
The woodwind trees heave dolorous sighs
against the meek singsong of power lines strings.
The nooks of houses add dissonant thin whistles
that punctuate the drone of some unknown oboe.
Leaves dash in abrupt skittering dances, their tiny footfalls
a reckless rhythm as a loose door bangs inexplicable tempo.
Only the wind knows the score and pauses
so we may hear the vast silence
into which weather wildly improvises.
by Don Horton
“Maine Boulders” by Anne Yarnall
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 6 Autumn 2020
The hand-carved wooden box sat
high on the bookshelf at our family
cabin in New Hampshire. Looking up,
I could almost hear from within the
box a disembodied voice pleading,
“Am I to stay here forever in limbo
beneath the VHS tapes and bird identi-
fication books?” It had been almost
three months since our fourteen-year-
old English Cocker Spaniel, Molly, had
died. Now, over Labor Day weekend,
the whole family would gather to
celebrate her life and give her a musical
send-off.
Hers would be a New Orleans
style “Jazz Funeral”, a tradition most
commonly done for individuals who
are musicians themselves. But how
appropriate to celebrate the life of our
canine contralto (famed for howling
along whenever Bill whistled “O soave
fanciulla” from La Bohème or
“Memories” from the musical Cats.)
The thirteen funeral attendees had
been instructed to wear black, which
resulted in a preponderance of Dracula
capes, sunglasses, and pirate hats. Dud-
ley, the giant black poodle, came au
naturel. In a jazz funeral, a brass band
playing somber dirges would accompa-
ny the family and friends as they walk
slowly from the home or church with
the coffin to the cemetery, often pass-
ing by favorite places the deceased
used to frequent.
Wearing her grandfather’s 1940
tuxedo, daughter Pam served as Grand
Marshal, setting the pace by placing
one foot out and pulling the other be-
hind in a slow drag. Aidan (16) fol-
lowed, boombox on shoulder, provid-
ing a pre-recorded funereal rendition of
“Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” with
the trumpet setting the melody, the
bass drum providing the somber
A Jazz Funeral For Molly
by Jane Holloway
rhythm, and the clarinet singing back
the high-pealing “widow’s wail.” Next
came Liam (13) and Kieran (12) sol-
emnly walking with their “invisible
dog” leashes from a clown supply
company. One leash bore the tag
“The Spirit of Molly” and the other
“The Spirit of Cricket.” Cricket was
Pam’s dog who died two years earlier
and who was buried in the area now
rededicated as “The Camp Missing
Moose Canine Memorial Garden.”
Chelsea (10) carried Molly’s ashes in
the carved wooden box, resting on an
egg-yolk yellow blanket, and Bella (15)
carried a bouquet of white faux roses.
The other family members fell in step
as the procession continued—step . . .
drag, step . . . drag, step . . . drag,—
beginning at Molly’s favorite couch,
and proceeding slowly past the camp-
er (her traveling doghouse), the gar-
den (ah, dirt!), and down to the lake
where Molly loved to retrieve sticks
and chase frogs. At each of Molly’s
special places, Grand Marshal Pam
led the group in a communal howl.
Once we reached the cemetery,
Jane, in a black nun’s outfit, orches-
trated a brief memorial service. Chel-
sea placed Molly’s box in the open
grave, and Bella put white roses on
the graves of Molly and Cricket, while
their canine spirits looked on. Bill
gave the eulogy and shared with the
congregants a small Zip-Loc baggie of
Lake Champlain Fudge sculpted in
the form of Molly’s favorite food.
(Medical note: Molly had undeterred
coprophagy.) In closing, each person
offered a comment on the “Spirit of
Molly” (“adventuresome,” “playful,”
“cuddly,” “thieving”) and placed an
item in the grave—a dirty sock, a
clump of seaweed, a shredded Kleenex.
In true New Orleans fashion, after
the deceased was buried, the members
of the procession said their final good-
byes and “cut the body loose” (cutting
the soul loose from earthly ties). Then
the tempo changed, as people are re-
quired to dance in honor of the dead,
so we began with an upbeat rendition
of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Dance Leader Kris demonstrated the
“Second Line” (a two-step of sorts,
where the dancers wave colorful hand-
kerchiefs or umbrellas as they move to
the beat), and then she led everyone in
cathartic dancing up from the beach,
around the flagpole, and onto the patio
for a cookout featuring hot dogs and
tofu pups.
And in my mind, I could hear my
mother’s pleading voice saying to her
six-year-old daughter, “Jane, do you
have to make such a production out of
everything?”
I fear the answer is “yes.”
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 7 Autumn 2020
Dinner with Elyse or
Bring in the Nouns by Fran Volkmann
Elyse: Oh, this is lovely – pasta with salmon and peas. What are these little pasta thingies called again?
Me: Bow Ties
Oh yes, and the sauce— it’s rather nice. White.
Alfredo.
And you say it came from a jar?
Yes, a guy at the Co-op was pushing it, and I thought I’d give it a try.
It could use a little livening up. Some herby thing.
Some of the recipes call for mint or dill.
Or maybe that Italian thing that they use in everything.
Basil?
Oh yes, of course, basil. It would be delicious cut up into little strips and sprinkled over the top.
A chiffonade?
Yes, that’s it, a basil chiffonade. Perfect.
Did you see that documentary on PBS last night on Henry VIII? It was excellent. I think I like the documentary form better
than making history into a performance. And what’s-her-name, you know (singing) “with her ‘ed tucked underneath her
arm….”
Oh yeah, Ann Boleyn.
Yes, I didn’t realize what a conniving little you-know-what she was. I always just thought of her as a victim. And of course
she was also a victim. And who followed Henry? He did finally have a son, you know. I used to know all of the Tudors, but
no longer….
I ran into what’s-her-face yesterday, you know, the one with the little dog. Alice?
Audrey?
Oh yes, Audrey. Her little dog is named after a fruit, I think.
I think it’s Peaches.
Peaches. Very adorable little thing.
Do you remember the old song called “Bring in the Clowns” or “Send in the Clowns” or something like that? I think it was
done by Carole King or Joni Mitchell or somebody of that ilk. I can’t remember anything anymore.
Maybe it was Judy Collins? But I can’t remember who wrote it.
Here’s a new version (singing):
Isn’t it rich,
Isn’t it rare,
Losing my tadada this late, in my career?
Bring in the nouns,
There ought to be nouns,
Oh please bring them here.
Funny, what stays with us and what doesn’t.
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 8 Autumn 2020
Bob Solosko, Northampton
I was raised in Queens in New York but moved to a
small town in western Pennsylvania when I was sixteen, go-
ing from a school with 1,500 in my class to a town of 800
with thirty-one in my graduating class. I spent eight years at
Penn State, leaving with BS, MS, and PhD degrees in electri-
cal engineering; a wife, two kids, a third one on the way, and
a banjo.
I then went to work at a research lab owned by Cornell
University, doing research and development for government
and industry. After a few years, during the upheavals at the
end of the Vietnam war, the university divested itself of this
government-funded research lab, setting it up as an inde-
pendent company and bringing in business people to run it.
This motivated me to go back to school and get an MBA in
management—I was one of the few people in the company
who could effectively communicate with both the business
managers and the academically oriented scientists and engi-
neers. Eventually, I left government-oriented R&D and
spent the last twenty-five years of my career as a system en-
gineer at Bell Labs, specifying features and capabilities of the
network equipment that Bell Labs designed, and training
managers, developers and product people in the technical
details of these features and capabilities.
I met Jean at an English country dance in Watertown,
Massachusetts, on October 11,1989 at 9:00 at night. My first
words to her were “Hi, I’m Bob”, and she answered “Hi,
I’m Jean; I saw my first dead person today.” Who could re-
sist! Jean is wife number three; we celebrated our twenty-
eighth anniversary this summer.
When Jean and I lived in Reading, near Boston, I had
the major responsibility of coordinating logistics for the
High Holiday services at our temple. After we moved to the
Valley in 2009, I did that same job at the JCA (Jewish Com-
munity of Amherst) and also served as one of the board vice
-presidents. As the head of the Buildings and Grounds com-
mittee, I initiated and was responsible for overseeing a num-
ber of major renovations. I was a long-time board member
of the New England Folk Festival Association (NEFFA)
and currently have a minor role on the NEFFA Program
Committee.
All of my hobbies and interests are lifelong ones, start-
ing when I was a teenager: photography, traditional music,
ham radio, and cycling.
I like to photograph a diverse range of subjects includ-
ing people, plants and flowers, scenics, and abstracts. My
images have been exhibited in galleries, banks, and hospitals,
and are in a number of private collections. In April 2018, I
was featured in the Art Maker column in the Daily Hampshire
Gazette. I’m an Adobe Lightroom Certified Expert and oc-
casionally teach workshops in Lightroom, Photoshop, cam-
era handling, and photography.
I play traditional five-string banjo, penny whistle, and
mountain dulcimer, mostly contra dance music, old-time
Southern mountain tunes, and Celtic tunes. I played in a
contra dance band for fifteen years in the Boston area and
now mostly just jam with other local traditional musicians.
Jean Krogh, Northampton
I grew up in Pittsburgh and have lived in Massachusetts
since attending college at Smith. Before college, I was al-
ready familiar with the Valley, from time spent in North-
ampton when my mother went to her Smith reunions, and
from time in Deerfield when my family stayed in a small
cottage on land that had been in my father’s family since the
1800s.
My last two years at Smith were focused on internation-
al folk dancing at Davis Ballroom and on the men I met
there. I took that interest in folk dancing to the Boston area,
where I moved after college to get an Ed.M. at Tufts. My
twenties were spent mostly in Cambridge—dancing, earning
a living at a variety of jobs, raising my feminist conscious-
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 9 Autumn 2020
ness, joining some protests, learning about myself in thera-
py, being in a relationship.
When I was thirty, I left that relationship and the Bos-
ton area and moved to Deerfield and then to Northampton.
I contra danced and continued my therapy journey and my
spiritual journey. I started work as a secretary in the Office
of Alumni Affairs at the Smith College School for Social
Work and worked in that office for five years, ending up as
the Director of Alumni Affairs. Inspired by my own thera-
pists and the social workers I met at the School, I decided
to get an MSW. So I returned to the Boston area to go to
Simmons Social Work School.
After Simmons, I worked for ten years as a social work-
er, in three different jobs: with children and teens with de-
velopmental disabilities who were in foster care, in a chronic
care and rehab hospital, and in hospice. During those years,
I met Bob, and we started our life together. We were mar-
ried outdoors in 1992 on the family land in Deerfield.
In 1996, I left my hospice job to take a six-month
break. That six months turned into the rest of my life. I
never went back to social work, though I kept up my
LICSW license for many years.
My spiritual journey took a major new step when, in
2003, I converted to Judaism, in the Reform tradition. In
2006, I was part of an adult bat mitzvah class. But as in so
many parts of my life, I do not define myself as simply one
thing or another. I am Jewish and I am involved in a UU
congregation and I explore other aspects of spirituality.
Several years ago, I wrote a memoir. I had wanted to
write my life story for many years, and finally I did. Since
finishing my memoir, my life has continued along its path,
as I seek meaning, purpose, and ways to make reparations in
this world that cries out for justice and peace.
And now Bob and I have moved to Lathrop, a major
move, made more difficult in this pandemic time. We’re
very glad to be here, and we’re still making our way in this
new chapter in our lives. We’re slowly learning to co-exist in
our small kitchen!
“Pears” by Anne Yarnall
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 10 Autumn 2020
Steffi Schamess, Easthampton
Back story:
As a member of the
editorial board of the
Nor’Easter, I volun-
teered to ask my new
neighbor to write a bio
for our next issue.
When I approached
Sarah McCardle, better
known as Tinka, she
demurred. “All new
residents are asked, and
as far as I know most
of them do it,” I said
persuasively, adding
(perhaps unwisely),
“although I seem to
have gotten away without doing one.” “Aha,” said Tinka.
“When you write yours, I’ll write mine.” I agreed, albeit re-
luctantly. So I wore my Editorial hat and interviewed my-
self. Herein follows the exchange between the Editorial Me
and the Resident Me, or EM/RM, for short.
Q&A
EM: Knowing you as I do, Steffi, I’m assuming you’d
rather talk about who you are than what you’ve done. So I’ll
start by asking you where you are from.
RM: I guessed you’d ask that, because you know I think
it’s a hard question to answer.
EM: Explain why.
RM: Let me put it this way. I’ve lived a lot of places, but
I’m really only from a few of them. Inhabiting a location is
not necessarily being from that place. My husband, for exam-
ple, was always from the Bronx, in spite of the fact that by
the time he died, in 2019, he had lived in Northampton for
many more years than he’d lived in the Bronx.
EM: Ok, skip the places you inhabited and tell us where
you’re from.
RM: I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. I’m definitely
from there. I’ve gone back and visited the two houses I
lived in there—one is right next door to the other—and
although the demographics of the neighborhood are com-
pletely different now, I still feel it’s my home. I spent my
childhood years playing under the umbrella-like branches of
a weeping mulberry tree—it’s similar to a weeping willow
but has thick green leaves and, in season, plump purple mul-
berries. That tree is still there, with my memories etched into
its leaves. I am most definitely also from Northampton,
where I lived for fifty years before moving to Lathrop. I
have friends there with whom I share a common history—
when your friendships go back 50 years, you’ve been
through a lot together.
EM: Can you tell us about a few outstanding or trans-
formative experiences in your life?
RM: At the top of the list is growing up as the first
grandchild in a three-generation, extended family, surround-
ed by my grandparents, my father’s younger five siblings,
and over time, their spouses and the cousins who came after
me. The family was lively, very funny, sometimes bawdy,
and always interesting.
Going to a small, rather unconventional college (Sarah
Lawrence College) played a huge role in who I became as a
person. Living in Israel for a year after college, coming
home, getting married, and having two children were all life-
changing events. Becoming a grandmother was immensely
gratifying. Losing a son to cancer when he was 35 and had
just become a father was not an experience I would wish for
anyone else, but I am including it because it is part of who I
am now.
Getting my doctorate at age fifty opened up a new ca-
reer for me—teaching child development at Hampshire Col-
lege—that I thoroughly enjoyed. And then—time passed, I
got old, and in May of 2019 I came to Lathrop where I had
the incredible good luck to end up on Teaberry Lane sur-
rounded by terrific neighbors. Sadly, my husband Gerry died
just a few weeks after we’d moved in, but living here has
provided the supportive environment that’s made it possible
to adjust to widowhood.
EM: Anything else you’d like to add?
RM: Hmm . . . . Ok, three things. I love murder myster-
ies, I love music (particularly choral music), and the person
I’d most like to meet in the afterlife is William Shakespeare,
so I can ask him if he really wrote all those magnificent plays.
EM: Well, I think we’ve reached the word limit. Thanks,
and I’m looking forward to seeing Tinka’s bio soon!
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 11 Autumn 2020
In this feature, we share our “good reads” with one another. Have you read a book lately that was especially pleasing, or engrossing or
thought-provoking? We invite you to share your enthusiasm with fellow readers. Send a very short description including the author’s name,
the title, and your full name and location to Bobbie Reitt at [email protected].
What We Are Reading
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
I chose to read The Underground Railroad
because I was involved with the study of
slavery during my long career at Old Stur-
bridge Village, a living history museum of
the early 19th century. I am drawn to that
period because I was so immersed in it for
so long. The most enriching part was role-
playing a famous abolitionist, Lydia Maria
Child, who lived here in the Valley in Flor-
ence for a few years. Reading her books and her letters and
speeches, I saw slavery through her eyes; her goal was to free
the blacks. Whitehead’s book was a must-read for me, as
painful as it was. I thought I knew so much about slavery,
but nothing prepared me for the horror, the cruelty, the pain,
the desperation to escape. I could read only small portions at
a time to truly absorb what slave life was like and to be able
to sleep at night. Don’t let my words stop you from reading a
book that will help you understand the fight for equality that
we are now undertaking.
Recommended by Daphne Stevens Northampton
(Ed. note: this book won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award)
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, is a
founding work in the history of black pro-
test. In his ‘’Forethought”, Du Bois writes:
“Herein lie buried many things which if read
with patience may show the strange meaning
of being black here at the dawning of the
twentieth century. The meaning is not with-
out interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the
problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the col-
or line.”
In our time of renewed upheaval about racism, every Ameri-
can should read this book. In the first essay, “Of Our Spir-
itual Strivings,” Du Bois argues that the world needs to know
the “strivings” in the souls of black folks—to understand the
experience of being black in America. Each subsequent essay
takes up a different look at the history and issues of racism in
America. A key metaphor in the book is the idea that a veil
“separates white and black America.” Through the veil,
blacks see themselves and how different their lives are from
whites, but “white people could not see through the veil the
opportunities that black people were denied.” The veil leads
to “double consciousness” in which blacks see themselves
through the lens of whites. Another chapter describes the
chaotic aftermath of Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves, a period
that most of us never learned about in our American history
classes. Du Bois also describes his work as a schoolteacher
in rural Tennessee, the collapse of the cotton industry, the
struggle of black tenant farmers, and the color line that
keeps blacks and whites firmly in separate communities. Du
Bois was a scholar, a sociologist and historian. He was also
a poet who brings the reader into the souls of blacks with
his heartfelt, lyrical prose.
Recommended by Joan Cenedella, Northampton
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Between the World and Me is a 2015
memoir written as a letter to Coates’s
teenage son, in which he describes
black life under white supremacy as
having no agency but living under the
constraints of a society designed to
limit his ambitions, even to kill him. It
was a finalist for the National Book
Award and earned him a MacArthur “genius grant.” Mod-
eled by the author on James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, it
reaches a different conclusion: Baldwin advised his nephew
to resist, hope, and reach for his dreams. Coates advises his
son that racial injustice is historical and permanent, that he
can struggle but should not expect white supremacy to
yield.
Recommended by Ellen Ober, Easthampton
The Lathrop Nor’Easter 100 Basset Brook Drive Easthampton, MA 01027
“Acadia” by Anne Yarnall